


Hammer out a Home

by Etnoe



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/M, Humour, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: Slit stages a coup.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



Two stupid questions began Toast's day:

"Wanna be my wife?"

_Is that seriously a flag of you?_

At least she didn't say her own stupid question aloud, and merely stared through sleep-gummy eyes between Slit and what he held leaning on one shoulder.

It _was_ a flag, backed with something so that the fabric didn't drape and the picture on it was visible in its entirety. It featured the kind of stick figure that Slit often drew, stylised so they managed not to look amateurish or unfinished, and it was definitely meant to be him. No distinguishing features to the little manikin, but one and she knew it. The stick figure had feet on two of Citadel's buttes and the third drawn strategically - and tragically, and inevitably - between his legs.

And so, at the moment that she should have felt her worst fears and suspicions of the remaining War Boys affirmed, Toast was entirely unable to take Slit seriously. He said something about 'taking over Citadel' and she just kept on squinting in disbelief and wishing it wasn't so early.

"Huh?" she said belatedly, his next words sinking in. She also realised that in the hand not steadying the flag, he was holding one of those explosive-tipped lances.

"I took over. A _coup_ ," he said, the taste of a still-fresh new word making him smile down at her, the staples in his face glinting dimly as the muscles bunched around them. "And I'll do a better job than you, and even the Imperator, because I don't got dreams of what Citadel is gonna be. I know what it's got to be, right now."

There was fervour on his face, but then it faded. He looked more like she'd got to know him, hunting for an angle, ever so slightly uncertain. "But it's not like you're useless, or anything. I mean--" He cleared his throat. "You're good at learning our stuff, War Boy stuff, and teaching all the tricks you Sisters picked up. So I - I _know_ , you'd be good at being a Wife again. The Wife. So - are you gonna be?"

"Ask later," said Toast, weary and sighing, and turned over in bed.

Take that. Try and get her with a yes or no answer? Not on your nasty, brutish life. If they were going to call her the smart one, then she might as well try to be a little smarter than most.

Slit prodded her, maybe with a booted foot, maybe with the lance he held. Symbolic, that lance, against all odds - she'd looked him over, blank up-and-down like he was a gun offered for trade so he might squirm (no such luck), and the worst thing on him was a skid mark of dirt up the side of his face. No blood. No scent of fire. Innocent as a newborn pup, from what could be observed, but with a damned flag of conquering resting on his shoulder.

"I'm _tired_ ," she complained, a tone she'd heard from him often enough that she thought it would strike a chord, but took the excuse to peek back and keep an eye on him. "Bother Cheedo." She ought to be hard to find at this time of day, right? Toast could only hope. Cheedo could be at a signal tower, the scout's room, with Dag, at breakfast, with the Mothers ... She always caught up with gossip fast, too, since she liked working with Citadel's message systems so much, so if there was a coup she would likely be aware and making herself scarce.

"Yeah, I thought about that already." Any more proud flexing and his pecs might just pop right off. "Gonna tell her to make it known round here that I'm the boss, now. Get the word out. I figure she'll keep doing that job, but I'll give her a list of the old war signals too."

Great, it was going to be an explosion per minute around here from now on.

"She learns fast," Toast said with the most begrudging agreeability possible. "Now go away. Sleeping."

"Was a feat, and all, taking over," Slit said. "But I guess I gotta go and take care of the important stuff. Since I won. And you're not in charge anymore."

The man could sulk like a toddler, for fuck's sake, he was using the exact tone she'd been trying to mimic.

Once the sound of his boots faded and no other sounds had made their presence known, Toast flung off her blanket and got dressed. _Wife_ , again ... she knew that word all the ways it could be, from her own Wasteland gang, growing up, to how Joe & Co. turned it outside in. And here was that enormous idiot Slit, sounding a whole lot like he wanted to drag up some of the childhood meaning for it from the bottom of her memory banks.

It was easy to disguise yourself as part of the Populace of Citadel - get lots of half-rotten wrappings around you, mixed in with some of the nice new cloth being made. Then out the escape tunnel that Corpus Colossus had showed them was built into this little storeroom they'd converted into a new bedroom...

Now, to figure out this coup.

 

It was generally easy to find the Dag - the gardens were her life's mission. Toast had started her search with certainty that gave way to dread as she shuffled through the crowds while pretending to have the arduous gait of chronic pain, to complete her disguise. She passed knots of frantic gossip, but a lot of people were just going about their days, so nothing looked all that bad ... but what if Slit going conquistador meant he'd gone to find the Dag first? What if he'd decided that she had too much power as the person who'd changed being a green thumb into something revered ... what if he'd thought it would be appropriate to slit a smile into her throat?

Slit and his group _had_ found her first, Toast found once she gathered her furious, frantic sister in her arms, but they had only left her with a message.

"They went and cut off the water from everybody! That Slit's got his crew guarding the levers, War Boys and a coupla new hangers-on you'd wish would know better-- Here." The Dag shoved binoculars at Toast so she could see it for herself. "They won't let any water flow till he says they should. Just like Joe. You can see the war toys bristling off them from here, they can kill anybody who comes close if they really decide they want to dare, if they really think the others aren't coming back."

Toast turned disgustedly from the sight of the men lounging about the levers, in time to see the Dag put a bitten-bloody thumb to her teeth, and grabbed her hand away.

"I've got to water the plants!" the Dag said, her voice cracking, and then both her hands scrabbled to hold on to Toast for comfort.

Toast leaned into her to oblige the search, and to whisper. "You've got to help me set bombs."

It didn't lessen the panic in the Dag's expression, but the feral quality of her anger abated. There, just like Toast always argued with her sisters - a little fight could do you good.

 

_BOOM._

"That was in the garage," Toast told the War Boys guarding the levers, and a few of them outright whimpered. One ran for it without a second look, and as she moved aside to let him pass, she took a few steps closer to the ones still guarding the access to water. They were too distracted to notice. "There are a lot more weapon stores than you know of, Slit, and I can use them pretty well."

"The garage?" he breathed in trembling horror. "You, the Knowing, you're blowing up our transport?"

"I tried to stop her!" said Corpus Colossus, who had begrudgingly agreed that the Dag and Cheedo could carry him there so he could look frantic for verisimilitude. Only too obliging, for once, he was faintly green with tension. "She's not about to listen to anything but you going belly-up, champ. Cleared out the Populace and the storage from the rooms around there, since you so helpfully rounded up all the black thumbs already, and let rip."

 _BOOM._ With the first shock of the loudness worn off, you could hear the sounds that made up the aftermath, the groan and crush of metal and glass giving in to heat. Another War Boy ran off, and Slit watched him go with palpable anxiety to follow.

Toast spoke, and kept her voice steady despite stabs of resentment at the way Slit kept looking past her, at the corridor making the most direct route to the garages. "You're keeping us thirsty. I'm keeping us hungry, considering we still need to go on a proper supply run if Furiosa and the others don't come back soon. Isn't that a good match?"

"The water's still here! Where are we supposed to go get more cars?"

"A proper raid," Toast said - possibly the only thing that could have stopped the look of devastation on those would-be skeleton faces. They turned to her as one. Oh, but they could remind her of herself and her sisters... "You get to go to war.

"But you give Citadel back to me."

Some of the War Boys even begged to carry her on their shoulders. Not Slit - he raised a hand and dropped it like he had no clear idea of what to do (base state of your common War Boy, right there), looking at her with more helplessness than he ought to, and then he ran ahead to the garages.

 

After that Toast had done all she usually did that kept Citadel's gears grinding along, except that for once she'd helped the Dag with the watering. Then they had joined Cheedo for their daily vigil at the watchtower, hoping for a cloud of dust to signal the return of the trade group, and for the rest of the day the three of them indulged in sticking together.

Now Toast lay silent in her bed as the other two talked over her, a loopy distraction of low voices rather than a conversation to join in on, until they prodded her.

"Our dear interim government's not going to be very happy to hear you told the War Boys it's time to pick their favourite hobby back up," the Dag said.

" _I'm_ the interim government, till they get back."

"The marginally less interim government, I guess you could call it. I'm still holding out for democratic rule, you know."

Toast shook her head sharply. "What I know is, I'm not going to miss the next Buzzard they run down and take shit from."

"Or those Gas Town crews that decided to break loose and turn raider," Cheedo muttered darkly, and then looked immensely guilty. But Cheedo's moods were sometimes like that, changing fast and running deep all the same.

Toast felt she could save regret for being harsh when her reasons to stay soft returned: Furiosa riding in with loads of trade goods, with her other sisters and Nux and their citizens. And if they never did...

She'd been born in the Waste, for all that Citadel had hammered out a place for itself in her heart. She could live with Wasteland decisions. Those were how you lived longer.

Anyway. They hadn't killed anybody. They were all still human enough for that much, crazy, violent, ambitious, or desperate though they were in their varying degrees, Sisters and Populace and War Boys alike. In all her fears of something like this happening, she'd thought it would begin and end in blood.

Instead...

The sound of a lot of shit-talking approached, resounding in the corridor leading to their room. The three of them fell quiet and waited with interest - it was funny how you could tell when that kind of thing was serious, and when the violence was playful.

In the end Slit marched in, alone, a couple of yelps and laughs blending in with the tramp of boots that passed without him as he shook his hand out from the sting of a few hits.

"That was a good idea, Toast! I knew you still had fight in you. Like you would just turn over and pull the blanket up over your head."

"Wow, you can admit someone else might have good ideas," Cheedo said archly.

"Not like everybody doesn't know she's the kind of person who makes good plans," he snarled. But as his gaze slid back to Toast, the pride made just a little space for something else.

"It's later. So I'm asking. Do you wanna be my wife?" Slit mumbled. 

"Ya want her to _what_?" said Cheedo.

"Wife!" said the Dag, as if she'd never heard anything so insane. She might yet have a point, even for someone who'd met their Max.

"Maybe later," said Toast.

"You said I should _ask_ later!"

"For one thing, I'm not doing a single thing to make you feel better about losing! Can't rush a marriage, either. I'm a full-life, that's a lot of time I could potentially be spending with you. I'd better think about it, hadn't I?"

Slit sighed loudly and stomped out.

"That's horrible," Cheedo said, faintly appalled.

"It's the kind of thinking _he_ understands."

"There might be worse matches," the Dag said.

There might, indeed.


End file.
